O-Bummer by Bruce Gagnon

I had a phone call from a friend in Maine yesterday. He was very upset about the recent passage of the FISA surveillance bill in the Senate and wanted to know what should be done about it. He cares very much about civil liberties issues. He mentioned that he was disappointed that Obama had voted in favor of the bill.

I listened to him for some time. When I finally spoke I told him that I was losing patience with my progressive friends who keep complaining about how badly the Democrats performed (on Iraq occupation, possible Iran attack, no impeachment hearings, civil liberties, etc) and then turn right around and vote them back into office without a mumbling word.

He acknowledged that he, like many, has donated to Obama and volunteered for his campaign. He said he fears that John McCain would be a dangerous president – after all just look what McCain had said when he spoke at the recent AIPAC convention……..

I told my friend that in the end the right to vote is a sacred thing. We each must be free to do what we have to do and friends must remain friends. But with that said I told him I needed to tell him a story.

I voted for Jimmy Carter when he ran for president (1977-1981) largely because of his statement during his campaign that the “arms race was a disgrace to the human race.” Then he went and built the huge Trident nuclear submarine base in St. Marys, Georgia right on the Florida-Georgia border. I spent many days and nights protesting at this base in the years thereafter.

I told my friend that after the Vietnam War the American people were suffering from the “Vietnam syndrome” which meant the people were not eager for any more “foreign entangling alliances”. David Rockefeller at the Trilateral Commission sent the executive director of that high-brow organization, Zbignew Brzezinski, out to find a fresh face, someone who could offer “change” to the public. He recruited Jimmy Carter, the unknown Georgia governor and peanut farmer, to run for president. With the support of this hidden elite Carter became president. I fell for the trap. Brzezinski became Carter’s national security adviser and is the one who helped us arm the Taliban in Afghanistan so they could give the former Soviet Union their own version of a Vietnam quagmire. The U.S. has now built six permanent military bases in Afghanistan.

Zbignew Brzezinski went on to write a book called The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives that was published in the late 1980’s or early 1990’s. In this book Brzezinski talks about the importance of the Middle East and Central Asia because of their vast supplies of oil and natural gas. He says, “… But in the meantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.”

He continues, “In that context, how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe’s largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75% of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60% of the world’s GNP and about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.”

How though, Brzezinski asks, will we be able to convince the American people to expend the enormous amount of money it would take to secure Eurasia on behalf of the American corporate empire? How can we talk the American people into giving up their favorite social programs (Medicare and Social Security) so that permanent bases can be established in this region in order to control the extraction of resources?

He answers the question by saying, “Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.”

Translation – terrorism. The war on terror. Endless war to protect us from the dark, hard to find, cave dwelling forces of evil.

Today the American people are beginning to suffer from the Iraq and Afghanistan syndrome. Since 2001 we have been in a perpetual state of war which has been supported by both the Republicans and Democrats. How can we ever convince the American people to press on, to keep our feet in “Eurasia” when they have begun to show such a proclivity to tire of these foreign entanglements?

A new fresh face is needed.

I recently read an interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski that was published in a British progressive journal. In the interview Brzezinski, who is now one of Obama’s chief foreign policy advisers, brags that he had early on “vetted” the potential presidential candidate and was quite certain that he was the right man for the job at hand.

The official definition of the word vetted: to evaluate for possible approval or acceptance.

I told my friend that the fresh face of change was a facade. A false, superficial, or artificial appearance. A trick. A lie. A humiliation.

I told my friend that I cannot spend my life doing the work I do and then turn around and betray my own being by voting for someone that I know in my heart is pulling a fast one on us – pulling the wool over our eyes.

The great black abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass said it back in the 1880’s. “I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.”

Operation: #OneMoreVote

The FCC voted to repeal net neutrality, letting internet providers like Verizon and Comcast impose new fees, throttle bandwidth, and censor online content. But we can stop them by using the Congressional Review Act (CRA). We need one more vote to win in the Senate, and we’re launching an Internet-wide push to get it.

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The Golden Rule

“That which is hateful to you do not do to another ... the rest (of the Torah) is all commentary, now go study.” - Rabbi Hillel

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

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